S.A.L.T. - PARASHAT VAYETZE

By Rav David Silverberg

MOTZAEI

            Parashat Vayetze begins with Yaakov’s flight from his hometown to escape the rage of his older twin, Esav.  The Torah writes that Yaakov “left from Be’er Sheva,” emphasizing the fact that he left from the city of Be’er Sheva.

            This emphasis may perhaps be intended to draw our attention to the irony in Yaakov’s hurried, frantic escape from Be’er Sheva.  As we read in Parashat Toledot (chapter 26), Be’er Sheva is the place where Yitzchak settled to escape the hostility of the Philistines.  He had earlier taken residence in the Philistine region of Gerar, until he was compelled to leave due to the envy and antagonism of the local population.  Yitzchak then resided outside the city, until disputes with the surrounding shepherds over the limited water sources forced him to move further away from the Philistine population centers.  He finally resided in Be’er Sheva, where the Philistine leader, Avimelekh, came to him to initiate a formal truce.  It was also in Be’er Sheva where Yitzchak’s shepherds discovered a new well, which was named “Shiva.”  This well apparently served as a reliable, long-term solution for Yitzchak’s shepherding needs, as the site was named “Be’er Sheva” after the well.

            Be’er Sheva was thus the site of Yitzchak’s long-anticipated and hard-fought tranquility and stability.  After an extended period of struggle with the hostile Philistines, Yitzchak finally achieved peace and security after settling in Be’er Sheva.  This city offered him respite from antagonistic competitors, as well as a degree of financial security with the discovery of a new water source.

            There is thus more than a tinge of irony in the fact that Yaakov was forced to frantically flee from Be’er Sheva, the city of refuge and security.  The place that had provided Yitzchak with desperately-needed stability now endangered his heir.  Be’er Sheva rescued Yitzchak from drought and hostile enemies, but could not protect the family from internal conflicts.

            The pattern continues in the next generation, when Yaakov settled with his family in Chevron.  He had managed to make peace with his corrupt father-in-law, Lavan, and then with his vengeful brother.  Later, he was granted special divine protection from the hostile tribes of Canaan as he traveled southward toward Chevron (35:5).  When Yaakov finally reached Chevron, he anticipated spending his remaining years enjoying peace, security and stability, only to see his dreams shattered by the sale of his beloved son into slavery at the hands of his brothers (“bikesh Yaakov le’shev be-shalva mi-yad kafatz alav rogzo shel Yosef” – Rashi, 37:1).  Like in the previous generation, the family succeeded in overcoming external threats, but was torn asunder by internal strife.

            It is often easier to get along and maintain peaceful relations with people on the outside then with those within our own nucleus.  As in the cases of Yitzchak and Yaakov, external conflicts can sometimes be resolved far more easily than internal ones.  The intensity of close relationships with family members and friends often results in complications that could cause tension and conflict.  Many people enjoy pleasant relationships with friends and peers, but struggle with their relationships with close family members.  The stories of internal family conflicts in Sefer Bereishit perhaps warn us of the fragility of family relationships, and alert us to the need to exercise particular care when dealing with those who are closest to us in order to avoid tension and strife.

SUNDAY

            The Torah tells in Parashat Vayetze of Yaakov’s experiences while living with his father-in-law, Lavan, for whom he worked as a shepherd.  We read that after the birth of Yaakov’s twelfth child, Yosef, he decided to return to Canaan.  (Ultimately, he chose to remain an additional six years and work for Lavan.)  Rashi, citing the Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 73:6), comments that Yaakov decided to return home to Canaan at this point, upon the birth of Yosef, because Yosef was the “satan” (“nemesis”) of Esav.  Yaakov had fled to Lavan’s home to escape the rage of his older twin, Esav, and now that Yosef was born, Yaakov felt confident in his ability to defeat Esav.  Rashi cites in this context the verse from Sefer Ovadya (1:18), “The house of Yaakov shall be fire, and the house of Yosef shall be a flame, and the house of Esav shall be straw…”  It is the “flame” of Yosef that enabled Yaakov to triumph over his hostile brother.

            The Midrash appears to portray Esav and Yosef as opposing figures, characters representing opposite poles.  In what way is Yosef viewed as the “inverse” of Esav, the opposing force that would neutralize the threat that Esav posed?

            One possibility, perhaps, is that Chazal viewed Yosef as the paradigm of self-discipline and restraint.  As manifest most clearly in the incident with Potifar’s wife, Yosef, even as a young teenage boy, was capable of resisting persistent temptation and exercising restraint to withstand immense pressure.  The success he achieved as a servant in Potifar’s home, and later as Egyptian vizier, also likely testifies to his organization and management skills, a function of his patience, diligence and discipline.  These qualities stand in direct opposition to the persona of Esav, who is depicted by Chazal as unrestrained and untamed.  In the Torah we read of how Esav impulsively agreed to relinquish the birthright in exchange for food, reflecting rash, uncalculated behavior.  Esav acted on impulse and instinct, whereas Yosef was the bastion of restraint and control.  It is in this sense, perhaps, that Yosef is seen as the opposition to Esav.  Yosef embodied the fundamental precept that human beings have control over their passions and instincts, and are not slaves to, or passive functions of, their impulses.  This belief is the “fire” that will ultimately defeat the forces of “Esav” in the world, the force of unrestrained passion and emotion that has caused so much sorrow and destruction throughout the centuries.

MONDAY

            The first section of Parashat Vayetze tells of Yaakov’s journey from Canaan to Charan, during which he slept and beheld the famous vision of the ladder extending from his head to the heavens.  In this dream he also heard God speak to him and promise to offer him protection and prosperity during his sojourn away from his homeland.  God further promised to return Yaakov safely to Canaan, and that his descendants would inherit the land.

            Upon awakening from his prophetic dream, Yaakov exclaimed, “Indeed, the Lord is in this place, yet I did not know!” (28:16).

            The Panei’ach Raza (a commentary from the Tosafist school), as well as the Ba’al Ha-turim, take note of the final letters of the words, “va-yikatz Yaakov mi-shenato va-yomer” (“Yaakov awoke from his sleep, and he said”), which spell the word “tzibur” (“congregation”).  These writers detect in this verse a subtle allusion to the Talmudic dictum, “A person’s prayer is accepted only in a congregation” (see Ta’anit 8a).  This comment also appears in the work Menorat Ha-ma’or, as cited in Torah Sheleima.  The Menorat Ha-ma’or cites this remark in the name of a Midrash, which relates that Yaakov, who always made a point of praying with a minyan, prayed together with a minyan of angels at the site where he beheld his dream.

            The question arises as to the basis for the connection between these words – “Va-yikatz Yaakov mi-shenato” – and the importance of public prayer.  Why did these sources draw our attention to this precept – that prayer is more readily accepted when recited together with a congregation – in the context of Yaakov’s awakening from his dream at Bet El?

            As mentioned earlier, Yaakov exclaimed upon awakening, “Indeed, the Lord is in this place, yet I did not know!”  Rashi explains this to mean that Yaakov would never have slept in this sacred site if he had been aware of its holy stature.  Yaakov acknowledges that he erred by sleeping in a place of such holiness, unaware of its special quality.

            The Midrash cited by the Menorat Ha-ma’or perhaps saw Yaakov’s situation as symbolic of a more general phenomenon – people “sleeping” because they are unaware of God’s presence, that the Almighty is accessible even in their current condition.  There have been many periods through our nation’s history when we had reason to doubt whether God was indeed present, if we still retained our relationship with Him.  Individuals, too, at times wonder whether they can find the Almighty and earn His assistance in their current situation.  The Midrash bids us to “awaken” from spiritual despair, to acknowledge that “indeed, the Lord is in this place,” no matter how far we have strayed from our destiny and calling.  The basis for this “awakening” is the tzibur, the eternal and unbreakable bond between God and Am Yisrael.  A congregation’s prayer is never rejected because (as Rav Soloveitchik often emphasized) a congregation is viewed as representative of the entire nation.  When Jews pray together as a minyan, they stand before God not as a group of individuals, but rather as a delegation representing the entire Jewish people.  God’s bond with the Jewish people is eternally binding, and therefore prayers submitted by a congregation are always looked upon favorably.

            “Indeed, the Lord is in this place.”  As long as Am Yisrael remains together as an undivided nation, we can access God’s compassion and grace, in any situation.

TUESDAY

            Toward the end of Parashat Vayetze, we read of the formal pact made by Yaakov and Lavan in Gilead.  Yaakov and his family left Lavan’s home without informing him, and Lavan pursued and ultimately caught up to Yaakov’s family at Gilead.  The two decided to make a formal treaty and pledged never to harm one another.  Afterward, the Torah relates, “Lavan returned to his place.  And Yaakov went along his way, and angels of God met him” (32:1-2).

            The Meshekh Chokhma observes that this verse aptly captures one of the basic distinctions between the righteous and the wicked.  Laban “returned to his place,” he went to the place where he had previously been, whereas Yaakov “went along his way” – he continued moving onward.  One of the characteristics of habitually sinful people is stagnancy and complacency, the lack of desire or ambition to progress, advance, grow and improve.  They stubbornly and arrogantly insist upon the adequacy of their current standing, and so they stay in place.   The Meshekh Chokhma notes in particular the fact that Lavan “returned to his place” even after his experiences with his righteous son-in-law.  People with an interest in learning and growing would relish the opportunity to bask in the presence of a towering figure like Yaakov, and return from such an encounter with a spiritual charge.  But Lavan simply “returned to his place,” unaffected by his exposure to the righteous patriarch.

            Yaakov, on the hand, “went along his way.”  The righteous are constantly journeying, moving forward, working to improve and build upon their past achievements.  As the Gemara comments toward the end of Masekhet Berakhot, “Torah scholars have no rest – neither in this world nor in the next world.”  They continuously and tirelessly work and struggle to reach the next rung in the ladder of human perfection.  Yaakov could never just “return to his place” and stay where he is; he rather “went along his way,” moving forward along the lifelong pursuit of greatness.

            It is for good reason that Yaakov’s persona is often associated with his dream of the “ladder stationed in the ground, whose head reached the heavens” (28:12).  He exemplifies the desire to constantly rise and ascend, to achieve “heavenly” perfection even while stationed here on earth.  And our nation which bears his name – Am Yisrael – also bears the responsibility to follow his example and live lives characterized by constant progress and growth.

WEDNESDAY

            We read in Parashat Vayetze of Yaakov’s arrival in Charan, the hometown of his uncle, Lavan, in whose home he would live for the next twenty years.  Yaakov approached the well outside the city, and saw Rachel, his cousin and future wife, bringing her father’s flocks to the well.  The Torah tells that Yaakov quickly gave water to the sheep under Rachel’s charge, kissed her, and then wept.  Rashi (29:11), citing the Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 70:12), presents two possible reasons for why Yaakov wept.  According to the first explanation, Yaakov foresaw through ru’ach ha-kodesh (prophetic insight) that he would not be buried together with his beloved wife, who died and was buried in Bet Lechem, rather than in Me’arat Ha-makhpela together with the other matriarchs.  Secondly, Rashi writes, Yaakov perhaps wept because he came empty-handed and had nothing to offer Rachel.  Upon meeting his future mate, Yaakov immediately noted the contrast between his encounter with Rachel and the encounter between his mother, Rivka, and Avraham’s servant in Aram Naharayim.  When Avraham’s servant met Rivka and discovered her identity, at which point he determined that she was destined to marry Yitzchak, he showered upon her expensive gifts of jewelry.  Yaakov, on the other hand, came to Charan with nothing to offer his bride, and for this reason he wept.

            It is interesting to note the stark difference between these two concerns.  The first relates to Yaakov’s eternal relationship with Rachel, the everlasting bonding of souls reflected by a shared resting place in Yaakov’s ancestral tomb.  The second, by contrast, involved material goods, the fleeting gratification experienced by a betrothed couple as they exchange gifts in preparation for marriage.  (In fact, the Maharshal, as cited in Siftei Chakhamim, notes the difficulty in the assumption that the absence of material gifts would have troubled Yaakov.)  It seems almost peculiar that the Midrash (and Rashi) would suggest two such disparate explanations for Yaakov’s distress – the flaw in his eternal relationship with his beloved, and the lack of gifts which may have cast the smallest of dark shadows upon this otherwise exuberant encounter between bride and groom.

            The merging of these two approaches into a single passage in Rashi’s commentary may perhaps indicate that the significance of the second cause of Yaakov’s distress is far greater than we would have expected.  Simply put, Chazal looked gravely upon even minor infringements upon a person’s honor and feelings of self-worth.  Offering gifts to a bride was (and still is) a customary gesture made as an expression of commitment and celebration, and failing to give gifts put a damper – however slight – on the festivity of this special occasion.  We may reasonably assume that Rachel did not fret over the absence of fine jewelry, but Yaakov regarded this matter with utmost importance – to the point where this concern is equated with his concerns regarding their eternal resting place.  If brides ordinarily receive gifts, then Yaakov’s inability to observe this practice was indeed cause for distress.  He did not disregard the importance of minor gestures in forging a strong, everlasting relationship.  The failure to make this gesture threatened to detract from Yaakov and Rachel’s eternal bond – and it is therefore equated with the distance between their gravesites, as both indeed related to the long-term nature of the relationship.

(Taken from Rav Matis Blum’s Torah La-da’at)

THURSDAY

            The Torah in Parashat Vayetze describes how Lavan deceived his nephew, Yaakov, who had given seven years of loyal service as a shepherd in exchange for his daughter, Rachel’s, hand in marriage.  When the wedding night came, however, Lavan fiendishly brought his older daughter, Leah, to Yaakov instead of Rachel.  It was only the next morning, when Yaakov and Leah awakened, that Yaakov realized that he had married the wrong sister.  Lavan agreed to allow Yaakov to marry Rachel, in addition to Leah, on condition that he commits to yet another seven years of service.

            The Riva (Rav Yitzchak ben Asher Halevi, a disciple of Rashi), in his commentary to this parasha, cites Rabbenu Tam as raising the question of why Yaakov’s marriage to Leah was valid if it was done on error.  The halakhic principle of “kiddushei ta’ut” (“mistaken betrothal”) establishes that if a betrothal is performed under a mistaken presumption relating to a fundamental aspect of the relationship, it is automatically void.  When Yaakov betrothed Leah, his intention was to betroth Rachel.  The act was performed on a mistaken presumption of identity, and it therefore should not be binding.  The question thus arises as to why Yaakov remained married to Leah, if the marriage never took effect.

            One approach that could be taken to answer this question is to deny the applicability of the halakhic principles of kiddushin (betrothal) to the time period under discussion.  Rav Moshe Feinstein, in his Iggerot Moshe (E.H. 4:9), advances the theory that the halakhic concept of kiddushin as we know it, and as developed by the oral tradition, came into effect only with the giving of the Torah at Sinai.  Before then, the process of getting married was simpler and much less formal.  The Rambam writes this explicitly in the beginning of his Hilkhot Ishut (1:1):

Before the giving of the Torah, a man would meet a woman in the public square, and if he and she wished to marry, he would bring her into his home and engage in intercourse, privately, and she would be his wife.  Once the Torah was given, Israel was commanded that if a man wishes to marry a woman, he must first “acquire” her in the presence of witnesses, and at that point she becomes his wife.

The Torah institution of kiddushin adds a formal legal stage to the process.  Modeled after the institution of kinyanim (acquisition of property), kiddushin lends a certain dimension of formality and technicality to the formation of the husband-wife relationship, reflecting the central importance of commitment and mutual obligation as defining characteristics of marriage.  As the Rambam notes, this came into being at the time of Matan Torah, before which marriage was established more casually, requiring simply the mutual consent between the man and woman to marry.  Rav Moshe Feinstein invokes this principle to explain why Yaakov was permitted to marry two sisters, which is forbidden by Torah law.  In Rav Moshe’s view, this prohibition applies only to betrothing two sisters with the halakhic process of kiddushin, and it therefore did not obtain before Matan Torah, when the concept of kiddushin did not yet exist.

            This easily explains why Yaakov’s marriage to Leah was not disqualified due to the rule of kiddushei ta’ut.  If the concept of kiddushin did not yet apply during the time of Yaakov, then the validity of a marriage did not depend upon the guidelines that govern the process of kiddushin.  The marriage was therefore valid despite the fact that Yaakov mistook Leah for a different woman.

            The Riva, however, cites a different answer in the name of Rabbenu Elyakim.  A well-known Midrash, cited by Rashi (29:18), tells that Yaakov had all along suspected Lavan of deceit, and even took precautions to ensure that Lavan would not try to substitute Leah for Rachel.  If so, Rabbenu Elyakim speculated, then we can envision Yaakov taking into account the possibility of this switch when he betrothed his bride.  He perhaps specifically stipulated in his mind that he betroths either Rachel or Leah, depending on who the bride actually is.

            Chizkuni, interestingly enough, claims that Leah’s betrothal was, in fact, not valid, as it was made under false pretenses.  According to Chizkuni, Yaakov betrothed Leah a second time on the night after their wedding night so that she would be legally married to him, as the initial kiddushin was not a valid betrothal.  Indeed, the initial betrothal constituted a kiddushei ta’ut, this requiring Yaakov to repeat the betrothal the next night.

FRIDAY

            Parashat Vayetze tells of Yaakov’s famous dream as he fled from his hometown of Be’er Sheva to escape his brother’s vengeance.  In the dream, Yaakov beheld “a ladder stationed in the ground, with its head extending to the heavens.”  He saw “angels of God” ascending and descending the ladder.

            The Gemara in Masekhet Chulin (91b) provides an explanation for the meaning of this vision.  The angels ascended and descended the ladder to compare Yaakov’s appearance with the image engraved upon the Heavenly Throne.  They noticed the resemblance between the two images, and upon seeing that Yaakov was sleeping, they wanted to cause him harm, but God protected him.

            What is the meaning underlying this image?  What is the angels’ conduct in Yaakov’s vision intended to teach?

            Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch, in his Torah commentary, presents the following approach:

He [Yaakov] sees messengers of God, and notices that these messengers of God go up the ladder to get a picture of the ideal humanity, how human beings really should be, and then come down and compare what they find here below, with that picture to decide, according to that standard, whether to behave in a friendly assisting manner towards any particular member of mankind, or in very much the reverse way.

The angels compare people’s conduct on earth with their “heavenly image,” the ideal persona that they could be, each person according to his or her potential and mission.  If the angels see the individual “sleeping,” too comfortable and complacent with his work on earth, they seek to cause him harm.  We are not here on earth to “sleep,” to go through life calmly and contentedly without anxiously working to mold our image to accurately reflect the corresponding image in the heavens.  The angels who continuously travel to and from the heavens to compare our achievements with our potential have little tolerance for “sleep,” for slothful indifference.

            Fortunately, however, as Yaakov saw, “Behold, the Lord was standing over him,” which the Gemara explains as a reference to divine protection.  While the angels seek to harm those who “sleep,” God comes to protect them.  He mercifully allows us to “sleep” in the hope that we will eventually be awakened to our mission in earth and work to complete it.  The Almighty, who created the human being as a combination of earth and spirit, understands that they, unlike angels, need temporary periods of “sleep” and rest from the grueling work of pursuing perfection.  Yet, even He demands that we eventually “awaken” and resume our dedicated efforts to grow and improve, and to ensure that our earthly persona resembles and reflects our image in the heavens.